


Two Street (I see you and me)

by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions)



Series: Don't Let's Start Adjacent [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And no one likes it, Emotional Fallout, Gen, POV Hunk (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 06, Season/Series 06, Things got a little dark and it gets dragged to the surface, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 16:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticReactions/pseuds/BossToaster
Summary: As the team starts to head home, there's a tug on some of the lions.  Turns out, there are two people who got caught up in the rift to other realities before it closed.They have some thoughts on the reality they find themselves in.(Or: DLS!Shiro and Ryou end up in canon post Season 6)





	Two Street (I see you and me)

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be funny, but then it wasn't.
> 
> Uh, this is spoilers up through S6 of Voltron and all of DLS. Be ye warned.

They don’t get far.

Shiro crashes against Keith, which delays them when Keith doesn’t want to leave him alone for long enough to pack.  Then Lance wants to get Kaltenecker to use the bathroom outside before they leave, like he’s a dog who can be house-trained.  It takes them half an hour to figure out that Kaltenecker refuses to go back down the stairs, and that starts a whole new project of logistics.  There’s also Keith’s mom and his new space wolf, the Altean colony woman, and they need to contact Matt to bring him back to Earth with them.

It’s all a huge mess, and Hunk helps out where he can, which isn’t much.  Mostly he hovers in the middle of the lions and tries not to let anyone see his hands shake.  It’s been a weird, weird day. Shiro went nuts, they all almost died, he and Keith fought in a Shiro clone factory, apparently all of them died, and now the real Shiro is back in the clone’s body.  It’s so much with no time to process, but what else is new?

Finally, they get their stuff together enough, and plot a course for Earth, figuring out the best places to stop along the way.  The lions can go fast, but not wormhole fast, so Earth is going to take weeks of travel. It’d be less than that, but they all want a chance to stop and be together, to stretch their legs and have warm meals.  

Hunk hopes that they’ll also start swapping around passengers, too.  Right now he’s the only one with nobody, once they get Matt, and he doesn’t really like flying long term to begin with.  He wishes he could hitch a ride with Lance or Pidge, but he also doesn’t want to live in a small ship with a cow for the next couple of weeks.  Besides, he can’t leave Yellow to fly all alone, and what if someone attacks while they move?

It’s a lot to think about, so when they finally, finally get into the air, Hunk almost misses the tug.

Yellow pulls, just for a second.  Like he’s aiming for something else other than the coordinates they’d just inputted.  It isn’t like when the Olkari yanked their lions down from the sky. This isn’t mechanical.  It’s conscious. Yellow wants to go the other direction.

Back toward where they’d just exploded a bunch of rifts.

Hunk’s stomach plummets.  His first thought is that Lotor survived after all, and he’s about to rip into reality and start hitting them all again, now full of supplies and passengers. But Yellow corrects, and there’s no flash of light, no impact, no pain.

“Um,” Hunk calls, pulling up diagnostics.  “Did anyone else feel that?”

There’s a pause, then four more windows pop up on his screen.

“Feel what?” Pidge asks, her eyes narrowed.  “This little moon barely had gravity.”

“Nothing here,” Lance says.

Allura tilts her head, like she’s listening to Blue, then shakes it.  “Not me either.”

But Keith’s lips press thin, and his shoulders tense up.  “You mean that weird pull?” He opens his mouth to continue, then frowns and turns away.  “Hey, what are you doing up?”

Shiro’s face moves into view, taking up half of Keith’s window.  He looks exhausted, deep bags under his eyes, but his gaze is steady and focused.  “I felt it too. Black is paying attention to something behind us.”

It’s more than Hunk has gotten from Yellow.  But then, Shiro’s technically been inside Black for a year, or something.  The magic escapes him, but Hunk can imagine they’re still tied together in strange ways.  Not to mention whatever else was going on with the clone body.

Pidge presses her lips thin as she works on Green’s screens.  “I don’t see- oh. Huh.”

Hunk really hates that tone of voice.

“What’s huh?” Lance asks, his eyes narrowed.  

“There’s something by the rifts.  Something really small. Barely bigger than the castle diamond.”

Considering the hunk of it is nearly half Hunk’s size, that’s not as impressive as it should be.  It had looked so tiny in open space, compared to the Castle of Lions, but it’s a pretty significant chunk of mass.

“Is it…?”  Allura shuts her mouth so fast her teeth audibly click.  Behind her, there’s shifting fabric, like both other Alteans are listening in closely.

“You think Lotor got out?”  Keith’s brow furrows as he considers that.  “Well, at least he’s not in there to keep soaking up Quintessence.”

Shiro’s lips thin further.  “Doesn’t mean he’s not infected.  It didn’t take long for Zarkon and Haggar.”

At first, Hunk doesn’t think anything of the comment.

Then, he realizes that Shiro, their original Shiro, never heard that story.  It was the clone.

Hunk tenses, worried they got the wrong Shiro after all.  But, no, Allura had transferred Shiro’s essence or spirit or soul or whatever.  She’s good at magic, even if it’s a source of frustrating confusion to Hunk. She couldn’t have messed up like that without knowing.  She’d seemed so sure.

Maybe those memories had just been in the body, somehow.  Stored in the brain as electric data.

Does that mean the clone was still alive, still conscious, when they downloaded Shiro into him?

Hunk’s stomach twists uncomfortably at the idea, but he pushes it away to focus on the situation at hand.  There’s more important things to think about than unlikely what-ifs.

“Well, let’s go see.”  Lance turns Red around and starts heading in the direction of the rift.

“Lance!” Keith calls, frustration coloring his tone.  “Don’t just run off, will you?”

Lance scoffs so loudly that the microphone statics from the extra air.

Next to Keith, Shiro ducks his head, hiding a smile, and Hunk can’t help a touch of satisfaction himself.  New-Older-Galra-Keith has gained some patience, definitely, but their memory of him doing exactly that is still fresh.

The Blue and Green lions follow after, and Hunk heads off with them, nearly at the same time as Black.  Because, yeah, it isn’t like they’re going to just leave whatever they’re sensing out there. The lions are reacting, which is so weird, and the rifts are all sorts of bad news.

As they get closer, Hunk’s screen flashes.  A section of the view isolates and expands, zooming in far beyond what sight could have picked up.  

Floating in the void are two figures.  They’re humanoid and holding onto each by one hand.  

They are also wearing very familiar armor, black and white.

Hunk’s stomach twists into tight circles.  “More clones? I thought all the others were gone.”

Keith’s face is tight and tense.  “I thought so, too. Unless there were more that were already awake and gone.”

“Should we even get them, then?” Pidge asks, an edge of darkness to her voice.  “If it’s just two more clones, what are they going to do? There’s no where close enough for them to jet pack toward.”

That was kind of what Hunk was thinking, but hearing out loud sounds so bad.  He can tell the same thought occurs to Pidge, because she tenses and ducks her head, frowning.

“Are you  _ serious? _ ” Lance asks.  Red whirls around, as if to stare them all down.  “We’re just going to let them die in open space?”

“I would prefer we didn’t.”  Shiro’s already pale from the previous day, but now he looks downright ashen.

If he had the clone’s memories, then he remembers nearly dying in a ship while following Voltron.

Shame curls in Hunk’s chest, writhing like a living thing.  He didn’t even say it, but he feels like shit for just the thought.  If they’re evil clones then they’ll do… something. But letting them suffocate or dehydrate in space is pretty bad.

Pidge takes a deep breath, then nods. “Yeah, okay.”

“Besides,” Allura adds, slightly prim.  “We don’t know what they are, other than they they seem to have armor like paladins.  It may just be a similarity. And I do not think we should be the sort of people who will just leave someone like that.”  Her eyes are distant. Sad. But the set of her jaw is pure determination.

“That settles it, then,” Lance says, still a bit tense.  “I can get them in a second, then be back to the planet and we can all talk with whoever that is.”

Keith shakes his head.  “If they are dangerous, it’s just you and Kaltenecker with both of them.  It should be us. Krolia and I can take care of it.”

Shiro opens his mouth, then shuts it with a sulky click.  It looks like it physically pains him to even imply by omission that he can’t fight in his condition.

A purple hand lands on Keith’s other shoulder.  “We will just make sure they are secure before we return, and we can speak to them as a group.”  Krolia’s voice is steady and almost flat, the same way it always is.

It doesn’t escape Hunk that Keith still calls her ‘Krolia’, but he guesses that makes sense.  It’s kind of sad, but she came into Keith’s life so late. It’s probably more comfortable for him that way.

“Be safe,” Allura says.  “If you need any assistance, we’ll stay close, and we can come over.  Be on your guard.”

Krolia’s face isn’t visible, but Hunk has seen her enough to know the dark, thin smile she’d be wearing.  “Always.”

With that, Black turns around, jaw agape.  Hunk watches, gripping his bayard tight. The two figures turn toward the upcoming lion without seeming frightened, though they retain a tight grip on each other.  With the helmets up, it’s hard to say who’s wearing the armor, but it’s clearly not someone with Pidge or Hunk’s build.

They’re scooped up with no fuss, and Black turns and starts back toward the planet.

“I’ll fly,” Shiro says, so quiet that Hunk doesn’t think they were meant to hear it.  “You help Krolia.”

Keith hesitates, and his eyes dart down to where Shiro’s arm isn’t.  But he nods and stands up. “Let me know if you-” He stops suddenly, his fingers curling.

Laughing, Shiro settles into the chair.  “If I need a hand?”

There’s only a grunt in reply.  Keith steps away, leaving Shiro alone in the cockpit.  For a moment, Shiro’s right shoulder works, like he automatically tried to reach out.  But then his expression settles as he takes hold of the controls.

Honestly, Hunk feels a little like a voyeur.  He’d close the window, but if he does, he risks not seeing if something goes wrong.

They all turn and head back to the little moon.  A few seconds later, two familiar voices come over the helmets, quiet but easily recognizable.

“Keith?”

“Woah, you’re taller!”

Definitely Shiro’s voice.  On screen, Shiro tenses, but he doesn’t even look back.

Hunk tries not to look at Pidge, but he can’t resist.  Her lips are pressed thin, and he can only barely see her eyes from behind her bangs.  What’s visible is hard and cold, like she’s preparing to do something no one else will like.

This is the same person who prepared a kill switch for Shiro’s arm, just in case.  Before he disappeared, before they had any reason to distrust him.

It begs the question of what other plans she has.  Hunk swallows hard and tries to ignore that.

No matter how hard Hunk strains to listen, there’s no more sound from Keith’s helmet.  He must have switched it off, or else he completely stonewalled the questions. Knowing Keith, it’s probably the former.  It would take a lot to keep Keith from responding to any version of Shiro, even a clone. 

They land quickly, and Hunk practically scrambles out, bayard in hand.  Everyone else piles out quickly, so they all stand in front of the Black Lion as the huge maw opens, creating a platform.

Two Shiros step out, one dressed in the standard Black Paladin armor, with Shiro’s original haircut, and the other is in a pure white version.  The odd one also has pure white hair, like their Shiro now, and has his hands up in dramatic placation. The reason why is obvious when Krolia follows them, a blaster trained on their backs.

There’s a pause, where they wait for Keith, but he doesn’t show up.  Krolia doesn’t look worried, though, so it’s probably not for any bad reason.  Actually, he’s probably going to get their own Shiro.

The black armored Shiro looks around at them all, his brows raised.  His eyes roam over all the weapons trained at them, from Krolia’s blaster to all the bayards.  “This is discomforting.”

“You think?” The white one answers, the drawled tone so distinctly unlike Shiro that Hunk nearly drops his bayard in shock.  “I, for one, am very comfortable with our friends looking like they want to kill us.”

Lance tilts his head, and his smile isn’t very nice.  “Not kill. Just incapacitate, really. Maybe shoot out a leg.”

The white-haired one lets out a bark of laughter.  His raised hands turn into thumbs up. “Holy shit. Nice.  That was actually pretty scary.”

What’s _ with _ this clone?

Next to Hunk, Pidge’s bayard starts to droop.  Her eyes light up with understanding as her mouth forms a small ‘o’.  

Just as Hunk tries to follow whatever realization she’s made, Keith comes down the ramp, supporting Shiro by his remaining arm.  Both of them look wary, and Keith still has the Marmora blade in his hand.

Both of the strange Shiros turn around, and their eyes light up.

“Oh,” says the black-armored one, his brows winging up.  “That’s new.”

The white one looks delighted.  He takes the other by the arm and actually shakes him, making his opposite sway gently in place.  “Shiro! That’s- they have a  _ me!” _

That’s when it clicks.

These aren’t clones.  This is alternate reality versions.

Of course.  That’s why they were floating around in the rift.  They’d closed them quickly, but apparently something - someone - had gotten caught up anyway.

Shiro - their Shiro - blinks at them both, his brow furrowed.  “A who, exactly?”

The white one’s smile falls slightly, his enthusiasm visibly deflating.  Instead, he looks wary. “A Ryou? Um, clone. But better, now.” He holds up his right arm, which both these Shiros have.  His looks the same under the armor. But when he pulls off the glove, the blue lights and sleeker design are obviously different.

Obviously _ Altean. _

Huh.

“Ryou,” their Shiro repeats back, his eyes wide as dinner plates.  Keith goes still as well, obviously recognizing something in the name.  “I’m not- I think we should sit down and talk.”

Black-armor nods and puts a hand on Ryou - the clone’s - shoulder.  “That’s probably a good idea.”

As Hunk reluctantly drops his bayard, he wonders why their lives can’t be easy for five damn minutes.

***

The clone hasn’t spoken for ten minutes.

Everyone is keeping at least half an eye on him, Pidge and Allura especially.  But once they said that their Shiro was, well, Shiro, he crossed his arms and settled into a sulk.  The expression is so foreign on Shiro’s face that Hunk can’t help staring, even as the other two continue to speak.

“How long did it take your team to know there was a clone?” Lance asks, leaning forward.  There’s a tense set to his shoulder and guilt swimming in his eyes. Hunk presses a thigh to his, trying to support without saying it in front of these strangers, but Lance doesn’t react.

Not-Shiro considers and looks back.  “About three weeks?”

Ryou-the-clone sighs and nods, but doesn’t say anything else.

Their-Shiro arches a brow.  “Why so quickly? It took much longer in our universe.”

There’s another pause, as not-Shiro waits for the clone to respond.  But he still doesn’t, so not-Shiro takes a deep breath. “Well, I wasn’t there for that.  But from what I understand, Ryou’s behavior was strange. He had constant headaches as his arm repressed certain memories and concepts.  Even oblique references to something he couldn’t remember caused him pain.”

The clone doesn’t object, which is close enough to agreement.

“I don’t think ours was like that,” Hunk says slowly.  It bothers him that he doesn’t know. Shiro had headaches.  Bad ones, that caused him to go nearly comatose while fixing that shield.  But until they, he’d barely complained. Only once to Lance, and he hadn’t said it was long term.

Hunk forces himself to look at not-Shiro, rather than let his eyes slide to their-Shiro.  He might remember, and Hunk isn’t sure he wants to know the answer. If he was in just as much pain, but in this universe they didn’t notice, what does that say about them?

Lance curls up tighter and doesn’t speak either.

“He didn’t seem to have any memory problems, either,” Pidge added.  “I never noticed him misremember anything.”

On their-Shiro’s other side, Keith strokes his wolf’s fur.  Both of the strangers keep glancing over, but neither of them have made a comment on it.  Just one more oddity in this alternate reality, no doubt. The creature watches them all, darting from face to face, picking up the tense atmosphere.  

“How did you come back?” Keith asks Not-Shiro.  “He’s the one with the white hair. Was it not Allura?”

Not-Shiro’s lips twitch up. “I flew.  And if you want to know about Ryou’s hair, you can ask what dye he uses.  And tell him you can see his roots.”

Ryou-the-clone slaps both hands over his hair, eyes wide.  “You cannot! I dyed them yesterday, my roots are fine!”

“Are you sure?”

Lashing out, Ryou-the-clone kicks his Shiro on the thigh.  All of them tense, but the blow barely makes Not-Shiro rock, and doesn’t affect his smug expression at all.  “Don’t even talk to me. You stole my look.”

A smile spreads over not-Shiro’s face, which just makes the clone look angrier.  “No, I didn’t.”

Ryou-the-clone gestures jerkily toward their-Shiro.  “Yes, you did!”

“That’s an alternate reality, not me.”

“His name is Shiro and he has my look!  I did that to look less like you, you asshole. They’re going to think I’m him.”

“He’s missing an arm, I think they’ll be able to tell.”

“If you get white hair I swear I’m dying it pink in your sleep.”

Not-Shiro actually laughs at that, and Ryou-the-clone gives a strangled groan and flops backward.

The display should have made Hunk feel better.  It’s clear they’re not threats, or at least he hopes so.  They’re kind of goofy, and they joke around like friends. Like family, even. 

But this is the clone, and he’s smiling and joking and so clearly and visibly himself.

Could their clone have been like this Ryou?

Hunk’s stomach twists so hard he has to swallow back bile.

“So you didn’t die like I did,” their-Shiro says.

Everyone stills at the casual comment.  After a couple of seconds, the clone sits up, eyes wide.  He reaches out and snags his Shiro’s hand, holding it tightly at the wrist.

The other Shiro shakes his head.  “No,” he replies, very quiet. “Using the Black Lion’s wings was… uncontrolled.  I was essentially sling-shotted across the universe. It was pure luck I was close enough to an inhabited planet with space detection that I was picked up at all.”

Their-Shiro swallows hard as he sags forward, but he smiles.  “I suppose I’d rather have outright died than have suffocated out in space.”

There’s a pause, then Keith and Ryou-the-clone both burst into objections. 

“Don’t say that!” Keith snaps, turning on him.  

“Hey, asshole, remember the part where people miss you?”  The clone outright glowers at him, pulling his own Shiro in until they’re practically mashed together.  “Dark humor not appreciated.”

That was supposed to be a joke?

From Shiro’s raised eyebrows, yes.  

Okay, yeah, Hunk really didn’t find that funny.

“I must agree,” Allura says, crossing her arms.  “We prefer you having around, Shiro. Very much.”

Lance nods, his eyes suspiciously bright in the firelight.  “We’re really glad to have you back.”

Shiro looks around at them all, surprised.  “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “That’s still raw for everyone.  If there’s a choice, of course I choose to live. I just meant between those two options.”

Ryou-the-clone lets out a snort.  “Yeah, I don’t recommend suffocating in space.  Or at least pack a blanket.”

Not-Shiro frowns at him, then presses the metal hand to the middle of his back.  He shoves the clone over a few inches, scooting him closer to the fire.

“I don’t get it,” Pidge suddenly says, looking between them both.  “You two are all, what? Friends? Buddy-buddy?”

The clone stills at her tone, eyes wide.  “Uh… Well.”

“We’re brothers.”  Not-Shiro raises his chin high, as if daring anyone to comment.  “He’s my brother.”

Ryou softens and smiles, half to his lap.  “What he said.”

Their-Shiro breathes out through his teeth, his fingers clenching in his lap.  “Twins.”

Well, they’re definitely identical.  But twins?

Shiro has a far away look in his eyes, though, like he’s looking beyond the group.

“Yes,” not-Shiro replies, just as softly.  “Thus the name.”

“Shiro didn’t name me,” Ryou says, swallowing hard.  “I don’t think you would have at first.” There’s hesitation, before not-Shiro nods.  “Keith did.”

Keith starts, shoulders tense.  “I did?”

Ryou smiles, but it’s a dark look.  “Yeah, well, not to be magnanimous about it or anything.  We found out while Shiro was still totally missing, so you - he - told me I wasn’t allowed anything of Shiro’s. Not his name, not his room, not his stuff, not his relationships.  I had to figure something out, and I didn’t like any of the options I was getting. My grasp of Japanese is better, now, but for a while it was really rough, so I was having trouble reaching names.  You suggested Ryou.”

“What’s the significance of that name?” Coran asks. 

“I was supposed to have a twin,” their-Shiro admits.  He’s still not quite looking at anyone. “He was stillborn, but his name was supposed to be Ryou.”

Oh, jeez.  Yeah, no wonder Shiro and Keith looked like they’d seen a ghost when Ryou had said his name.

Pidge shakes her head and waves a hand.  “Okay, yeah, but how did you get there? Brothers, twins, fine, whatever.  How can you… didn’t he…?” She looks Ryou over like he’s about to turn on them right now, and she has to be ready.

“Did I what?” Ryou asks.  He leans back, like he’s trying to make himself smaller.

Hunk’s stomach does another flip.  This clone looks scared. The kind of fear that comes from knowing what’s coming and not being able to stop it.

“Turned on us,” Pidge hisses out.  She leans forward, lips pulled back and one hand braced on the rocky ground.  “Went off and joined Haggar! Tried to kill us! Uploaded a virus, fought Keith, any of it!”

The clone’s eyes close hard.  His face is so much more open than either Shiro, so every emotion is easily visible.  Pain, regret, sorrow. Guilt. “Yes. I did.”

He sounds shattered.

He had, and he regrets it.  It hurts him. 

Had their clone felt like that?

Surging forward, the other Shiro moves so he’s between Pidge and Ryou.  He glares at Pidge, righteous fury in his eyes. Suddenly he looks bigger, sterner.  He looks like Shiro did those first few weeks, when he was the only steady person on the team.  “That wasn’t his fault!” It’s not a snap, but a rumble. Worse, the anger is tempered by what looks like bone-deep disappointment in Pidge.  In all of them. “He didn’t chose how he was made, and he never asked for the arm. No more than I did, no more than any other prisoner of the Galra.  All of it was Haggar. She planted the traps, and it hurt Ryou every step of the way. Not one ounce of it was his fault for a second, and don’t you dare say otherwise!”

The words echo in on the small moon, carried by the sheer strength of the words.

Hunk’s stomach churns, and he tightens his throat against a gag.

Their clone, their ‘Ryou’, had been their friend.  He’d played Monsters and Mana with them. He’d reluctantly gone through the show, uncomfortable with the attention but game to help.  He’d been so honestly happy to pilot the Black Lion again and be part of the team. He’d wanted to be a paladin, over and over, because he couldn’t imagine anything better.

“I-” Lance’s voice comes out as a croak.  “I need to check on Kaltenecker.” With that, he scrambles to his feet and practically runs away.  He doesn’t get far enough before he starts to sniffle.

Pidge shrinks away, pale under the tirade.  “If I hadn’t come up with a kill switch for our arm, we’d all be dead.”  Her eyes are suspiciously bright as she glares back.

“Good,” the clone says.  

Hunk’s stomach starts to sink.

“I mean-”  The clone groans and shakes his head.  “Good that you had a kill switch. Not that- shit, not that.  Never. I’m glad you had something to stop me. Him. We’d both rather you do whatever it takes to keep you safe.  Right, brother dear?”

Not-Shiro doesn’t answer, his jaw working as he grinds his teeth.

“Enough of the overbearing act,” the clone says, turning to face his Shiro properly.  “You proved you’re the big bro, good job. Breathe, alright? Easy does it.” He pats not-Shiro in the middle of his chest.

The mannerisms are utterly foreign on any version of Shiro, but they’re familiar anyway.

They’re like Lance.

This clone has Shiro’s face, but he has some of Lance’s habits.  The joking, the drawl, the bluster.

Their version of the clone had reached out to Lance.  Was this the result, if they’d followed through and figured it out sooner?   

Hunk hopes that Lance never reaches that conclusion.  He might not survive the realization, not as the same person.

Finally, not-Shiro looks away from Pidge, and instead sets his eyes on their-Shiro.  “What happened to your clone?” 

The tone is damning.

The answer is worse.

Their-Shiro meets not-Shiro’s eyes steadily.  “This is his body.”

Both the strangers go stock still, eyes wide with dawning horror.

The urge to gag returns, stronger than ever.  Allura looks away, blinking rapidly, until Coran moves closer and squeezes her shoulder.

“You…”  Not-Shiro looks around at them all as if he’s never seen them before.  “Your Shiro was dead, and you just put him in Ryou? What happened to…?”

There is utter silence in return.  Even Pidge ducks her head, unable to look them in the eyes.

“Welp,” Ryou says.  He smacks his thighs and stands.  “I’m gunna check on- bad idea I’m gunna take a lap.  Have fun, kids. No killing anyone, Shiro.” With that he turns on his heel, the movement utterly military and Shiro-esque, and then sets off into the darkness at a jog.  In seconds, the white of his armor and hair vanishes behind the curvature of the moon.

Keith drops his hands from his wolf.  “He was dead,” he says gently. “Nearly, anyway.  He wouldn’t have survived much longer. Not without a pod.”

“Was he brain dead?” Not-Shiro shoots back, tone even uglier than before.

Hunk swallows hard and hesitates, not wanting that glare turned on him.  “We think so,” he says, and hopes it’s true.

“He was unresponsive,” Allura says. “That was all we could tell without the castle.  And he was about to die, and Shiro’s body was destroyed-”

She cuts off as not-Shiro stands.  His hands both run through his still-dark hair, eyes wild.  “So you assumed? That was a person! You just overrode him like an old hard drive.  Who cares, he’s just a clone! It’s not like he matters, right? Screw it, just remove him from his own body and stick someone else in. He’s not the real Shiro, it’s fine.  He never had a chance to be his own person anyway, he won’t know the difference.”

Pidge claps her hand over her mouth and lets out a quiet, hiccuping noise.  The anger has cracked from her expression, leaving pain behind. The pain of betrayal, of nearly being killed, of seeing Shiro look blank and hateful.

A pain they’d all let overtake them, that let them decide someone didn’t deserve their body.

“Enough,” their-Shiro says, standing as well.  He sways on his feet, balance shot without his arm, but he steadies.  “This body would have died. He would have been gone either way, and there’s nothing they could have done about it.  In those circumstances, this was the decision he would have wanted.”

“Did you ask him?” Not-Shiro shoots back, downright venomous.  

Keith flinches from the words and leans away.  Next to him, his mother moves closer, as if to protect him from the pain.  No doubt he’d gotten his fill of that tone during the fight with their clone.

“You’re asking him right now.”  Their-Shiro raises his chin, shoulders straight.  He doesn’t look at any of them, instead staring at his counterpart.  “And I’d rather my body live on in the hands of someone Haggar couldn’t control than to let both of us die.”

There it is.

It isn’t a surprise, not really.  The comments earlier were enough to prove that their-Shiro remembers at least a little.

But now Hunk isn’t worried he’s going to turn around and try to kill them again.  Now, he worries Shiro will hate them the way the other seems to want to.

Not-Shiro’s eyes go wide.  He steps back once, hands clenching at his side.  “You-” He swallows hard. “You have his memories, or you’re both.  Which one?”

“What’s the difference?” Their-Shiro asks.  He sounds achingly tired, like he had when he first woke up.

Not-Shiro lets out his breath slowly, then swallows hard.  Finally, he nods. “Okay. I can accept that. But you still-”  His voice chokes off as he blinks rapidly. “You don’t know who you missed out on.”

No, they don’t.  They never can know.  Even if part of that person is left in Shiro, he’ll never be this independent being that Ryou seems to have become.  They’ll never know Ryou Shirogane, twin of Shiro.

“We won’t know you, either,” Coran offers gently.  “Not as you are. We won’t know a version of Keith who grew up with the Blade of Marmora, either, or a version of Allura who was never a Princess.  Neither will you. This is how it turned out in our universe. Perhaps it could have been different. We know the symptoms were different for your clone.  Perhaps our wouldn’t have had the same personality. We can only work with the universe we’re given.”

“I suppose,” Not-Shiro says.  He looks down at the dirt instead of at all of them, and his eyes shine in the firelight.

Even after everything, Hunk has never seen a version of Shiro who looked so close to public tears.

“What happened?” Hunk asks, then winces when everyone turns to look at him.  “To- to Ryou. How’d it happen for him? It only took three weeks to find out he was a clone, and he has a different arm.”

Not-Shiro gives a bland smile.  “Haggar predicted our targets. One of the bases we hit had a virus uploaded into the computer.  It would have worked on either one of our arms, because they both use the same program to connect to Galra tech.  Ryou just happened to be the one to put his hand on the console. It put his mind to sleep, essentially. He obeyed any command given in the right dialect of Galran.  Including a command to kill me. Once we figured out how it worked, I told him to wake up and he did.”

The explanation hides a wealth of pain and worry, just as their own did.

It’s different.  Different enough that they could save their Ryou.  The other universe had time to figure out a solution, and they hadn’t.  Their clone would have died, and all the other bodies were already destroyed in the process.

Hunk doesn’t know what else they could have done.  Probably nothing.

But they could have at least hesitated.  Thought it through. Understood what they were doing.

Pidge holds up an arm and projections a screen onto the air in front of her.  She lets out a sniffle as she types, then pulls a small portable drive out of her armor.  Standing, she hands it over the fire to Not-Shiro. “That’s where the clones were made in our word,” she says, small but steady.  “Maybe you can do more for them.”

Not-Shiro takes it slowly, then closes his hand tightly around it.  “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.  That was-” Pidge winces.  “It’s been a really long day.”

A small smile crosses Not-Shiro’s face.  “I can’t say I have a perfect track record with him either.  He didn’t threaten to punch out your teeth, so you’re probably ahead of me.”

There’s a bark of laughter from the gloom.  A second later, Ryou returns, Lance a half step behind him.  There are still shining lines down Lance’s cheeks, but he’s smiling at Ryou, and his shoulders are relaxed.  

“They didn’t lie to me about my lion for weeks, so yeah,” Ryou agrees.  He sides up next to not-Shiro and knocks their shoulders together.

“I got you slippers,” not-Shiro says, a smile curling up his lips.  With his brother back, he immediately looks calmer.

“Uh, no, Lance got me slippers.  You made sad puppy dog eyes at him until he let you put your name on the tag.”

Not-Shiro snorts, but he doesn’t deny the claim.

“Lying about your lion?” Lance asks, his voice still a little rough.  “What, was he hiding a secret compartment of snacks in Black or something?”

Ryou’s nose crinkles.  “Black? No way, never trying that again.  I fly Yellow.”

Hunk starts, his eyes going wide.  “Yellow?”

“Yeah.”  Ryou outright grins.  He walks around the fire to plop down between Hunk and the empty spot Lance had left.  “’Cause he’s the best lion, obviously. And the brightest. You ever been in the others?  So dark.”

“Exactly!”  A smile spreads over Hunk’s lips before he can help himself, and then he’d not inclined to stop.  “Red’s alright, but all the others are like, how do you see anything in here?”

Not-Shiro sighs, but he smiles as he finally sits back down. “If we’re going to have this conversation again, maybe there should be food, too.  You look like you could use a meal.” He looks their-Shiro over critically, a hint of displeasure in his gaze. Apparently being part-Ryou means that this Shiro feels like he should be looking out for him, too.

“Oh, we can freak out a new Hunk,” Ryou offers cheerfully.

Hunk’s stomach chills, but not to the degree it had earlier.  “Freak me out how?”

“I can’t taste.”

It takes a second for that to register, and then horror crashes over Hunk like a wave. “You can’t- you’ve never- but you- not at all?”

Ryou outright laughs, throwing his head back.  “Want to test it out?”

“Yes!”

***

Over dinner, Allura works out the details of how to get the reality-hoppers back home without reactivating all those rifts.  It involves matching power signatures and specific locations, all information that would have been super cool if it hadn’t been for all the damn magic.

Halfway through, Ryou drags over both Shiros to Keith’s dog, and they spend a solid ten minutes showering the poor creature with an intense amount of affection.  The wolf seems to have no idea what to do with so much attention at once, and ends up tolerating it until he can slink back to Keith. Keith just looks pleased, though, and smiles when he gets a flushed Shiro back.

Apparently Shiro goes nuts for dogs.  Who knew? Other than Keith, obviously.

Lance corners not-Shiro, expression serious, and then spend a long twenty minutes speaking quietly away from the group.  It kills Hunk not to try and listen in, but that would be crossing a line, today. When they’re done, Lance looks shaky, but calmer than he was all day.

Eventually, Ryou winds his way over to Pidge and settles in next to her.  “So hey.”

Pidge winces and looks at Hunk, as if he has the answers for why the clone has sought her out.  He only shrugs, so she looks back at Ryou. “Hi.”

“So, small moon.  I kinda heard the…”  Ryou opens and closes his fingers like a mouth.  “Talking. Let’s say. And, uh, don’t take it too hard, alright?  It was a shit situation, and Shiro’s a little… well, he takes that stuff hard.”

“No kidding,” Hunk mutters.

Ryou inclines his head.  “Yeah. It’s a sore spot, after everything.  Which is ironic, ‘cause he was the one to distrust me for the longest by far.  He was mad, but part of it was his own guilt. So try not to let it keep you up at night, alright?”

Lips pressing thin, Pidge shrugs.  “Shouldn’t it? He’s right. We could have erased someone when it wasn’t his fault.  When he never had a chance.” All the fight’s gone out of her, now, leaving bone-deep pain.

Ryou hesitates, then puts a hand on her back.  Pidge flinches, but doesn’t pull away, so neither does Ryou.  “Yeah, and that sucks. But that’s on Haggar more than any of you.  What else were you supposed to do? I don’t know the whole story, but you almost died.  That’s self defense. I’ve told Shiro before that if it comes to that, I want to be taken down.”

The words are casual, but Hunk still flinches.  It’s a horrible situation, and he doesn’t know what he’d do if he was in the same shoes.  If somehow he ended up like their clone, would he want to die rather than hurt the team?

Yes, probably.  But it sucks.

“But we were the ones who did it.”  Pidge squeezes her eyes shut, curling in on herself.  “I didn’t care. I was just happy Shiro was back. The real one.”

“Of course you were!  You’d just nearly been killed, then got back your friend.  You’re allowed to be happy over that.” Ryou sighs, head tilted back to look up at the stars.  “So the horror of it didn’t hit at first. I don’t wish that on you anyway. So, rather than feeling like shit about yourselves, maybe channel it a bit more productively.  I know you have a little bit of a Ryou, still, but I know what I’d want. To be remembered. Not as Shiro only, but for the differences. What made him his own person.” Ryou shrugs, his eyes falling closed.  “Maybe that’s me. I had to be very different very fast. I built myself around the parts of me that weren’t Shiro. But above all, I’d want to be remembered. For the times you had fun with him, and the times he felt like he was your family.  As long as you don’t forget him, or don’t write him off completely, that’s enough. That’s all you have to do.”

It’s a small thing to ask, but it still hurts.  Those moments had culminated into the angry snarl on Shiro’s face as he attacked Hunk and sent him flying.  It had nearly gotten them all killed, and left the burn on Keith’s face.

It hurts, but it’s better than being the kind of people who don’t care at all.

“We can do that,” Hunk says, very quiet.

“Good.”  Ryou turns to grin at them both, as if the conversation hadn’t just been so heavy.  “Hey, do you guys have a digital copy of that Monsters and Mana rule stuff? I want a chance to look it over before we ask our Coran about it.”

Pidge tilts her head. “You think you’d want to be a paladin?”

Ryou considers, humming softly.  “Tempting, actually. It’s kind of the best class.  But nah, Shiro’s gunna pick that, no sense having two paladins.  Honestly, though, I’m hoping I can convince him to multi-class if I get a chance to read it over.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”  Hunk smiles despite himself as he projects the screen from his armor.  “I can get you the book.”

Ryou beams back, downright rakish in a way that’s more Lance than Shiro.  “Thanks. Oh! And once he’s feeling better, tell your Shiro to try out a goddamn color or two. It won’t kill him, honest.”

A laugh bubbles out of Hunk.  “No promises.”

“Good enough.”

***

The rift closes, and Allura lets out a slow sigh.  “That’s the best I can do,” she says. “That should have done it, so long as our calculations were right.”

“I’m sure they’re good,” Lance says.  “If not, their Allura was nearby. She can get them before they’re in danger from the rift.”

It’s bluster, but accurate bluster.  None of them can be sure, but close to it.  

Hunk stares at the empty space where the rift had just been.  Then he pulls up a private channel to Shiro’s helmet. “Hey, Shiro?”

“Yes, Hunk?”  Shiro sounds calm, but there’s a wobble to his voice. It’s a good thing that Keith is flying Black, because Shiro might drop off at any second.

Swallowing hard, Hunk considers words.  “I’m glad,” he finally says. “For all of you.”

There’s a pause, long enough that Hunk’s afraid Shiro had dropped off while he was thinking, or that he’s offended.  But then there’s a soft release of breath. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

“I wanted to make sure you knew, that’s all,” Hunk says.  Shiro hadn’t looked at any of them when he’d admitted to having the clone’s memories, as if afraid of their reactions.  And they hadn’t given him reason not to be, not at first.

“I do,” Shiro says, even more gently than before.  “You’re good people. We don’t live in a universe of easy answers.  We just do the best we can.”

Hunk nods, even if Shiro can’t see him.  “You’ll tell us if you feel funny again, right?”  He pauses, then winces. “Not, like, if you think Haggar’s still there.  I just mean you- he- you were in pain, and you didn’t say anything. You should tell us if you are.  Maybe we can help.”

Another long pause.  “You’re right. That’s not easy for me, but I’ll try.  I promise.”

It’s enough for today, especially when Shiro sounds so wrecked.  “Okay. Sounds good. Oh! One more thing. Ryou wanted me to say that, um… that wearing colors won’t kill you, and you should give it a shot.”

Shiro snorts loudly.  “Shows how much he knows.  Night, Hunk.” He’s still chuckling as he turns off the comms.

Despite everything, despite the long, painful day, Hunk smiles as he leans back in his chair.

They did what they could.

And tonight, Hunk could remember their friend for the last year.

He wouldn’t forget.  None of them would.

 


End file.
